A long silence followed.
She thought he had already gone when she felt his hand stroking her shoulder and heard his voice with a mournful quiver in it pleading:
"My dear, dear friend, tell me, _tell_ me, what could I do? Could I rob you of your one pleasure, your one a.s.surance? Was I to say to you, "It"s amateurish, unsalable?" I saw your whole soul was wrapped up in it, and you lived from it spiritually, as it were. I thought: "When her affairs are all smoothed out, I"ll just let it die a natural death." And you know it was in a fair way to die naturally. You hardly thought of it the last month. Dearest, dearest friend, do reflect, what wrong did I do? I helped you out of wretched surroundings, I gave you a few months of joy and freedom from care, and I didn"t even ask for so much as a kiss. If you want, return to your Mrs. Laue to-morrow, and it will be as if nothing happened. Or remain here quite calmly until you have found a position. I won"t thrust myself on you. You needn"t see me. When I--leave here--now--"
He could not continue.
After a period of silence Lilly raised her head in fright and curiosity to see what had become of him. She found him in a chair inclined over the table, his head hidden in his arms, and his back shaken with mute sobs.
She stood next to him a while, and tears rolled down her cheeks.
She was so sorry for him--oh, how sorry she was for him!
Then she gently laid her hand on his hair.
"Take comfort, dear friend," she said. "It will be much worse for me than for you. I won"t have anybody at all."
And she shuddered, thinking of her approaching loneliness.
He straightened himself up and silently reached for his hat. His eyes were even more bleared than before; his head inclined still further to the left.
Oh, how sorry she was for him!
"Good-by," he said, pressing her right hand. "And thank you."
"I will write to you," she said. "I should like to think it all over to-night. I shall probably move to-morrow, immediately."
"Whatever you wish," he said.
As he was drawing on his overcoat something long and cylindrical gleaming with gold and silver fell noiselessly from his pocket to the floor.
Lilly picked it up. It was a huge cracker.
Both had to smile.
"That lovely carnival had to have this sad ending," she said.
He sighed.
"Did you enjoy yourself? I hope for that at least."
"Oh, what"s the difference so far as I"m concerned?" said Lilly, deprecatingly.
"A great difference. The whole affair was gotten up for you."
"How--for me?"
"Well, do you suppose Mr. Kellermann, who at the very best earns fifty to a hundred marks a week, can afford such an entertainment? The physician ordered diversion, and on account of the position you are in, I couldn"t offer you any, so I hid behind him, and--"
She opened her eyes wide.
If he loved her to that extent!
"You dear, dear friend," she said, and for one instant lightly leaned her head against his shoulder.
He threw his arms about her quickly, greedily, as if she would be s.n.a.t.c.hed from him the next instant. His whole body quivered, and she felt his warm tears on her forehead.
Since he did not venture to kiss her even yet, she offered him her lips.
"The third," she thought.
When she glanced up, she saw Walter"s eyes on the wall looking down at her with a base, sneering smile. Just as she had feared in the carriage.
Terrified, she drew Mr. Dehnicke"s attention to the portrait.
"We"d better have it sent right down to the bas.e.m.e.nt to-morrow," he said.
And since they now had very much to say to each other, the carriage was immediately dismissed, because it was half past three, and the coachman and the horses needed a rest.
CHAPTER VIII
A new life began for Lilly once again.
An end to her loneliness!
Every afternoon Mr. Dehnicke came for his cup of tea, and now he was no longer Mr. Dehnicke; he was Richard, dear, beloved Richard, to whom one waved and nodded cheerily from the window, whom one received with outstretched arms in front of the apartment door, against whose knees one crouched on the floor, and from whose forehead one smoothed away the naughty frown of care with a tender "poor boy, poor boy."
Oh, how needless to have h.o.a.rded up such a wealth of love! She could lavish it in profusion, yet there was always a fresh supply.
Away with the _grande dame_, the haughty aristocrat! She stooped to him, played the little girl, wanted to be found fault with and scolded, looked terrified at the faintest shadow of displeasure on his face, and tried to read his every wish--wishes he himself was not aware of--from his eyes. She wanted to be grateful for his goodness, his tenderness, for everything he had done to save her from ruin.
No wonder, then, that by degrees he lost his adoring upward glance, and began to make demands, sometimes very whimsical demands, and a.s.sume the manner of a husband. Now and then he even recalled his benefactions, not very emphatically, though with sufficient explicitness to change what was at first voluntary humility into a duty.
Since Lilly had become his mistress, his att.i.tude to the world had veered about, so that his entire life stood on a different basis.
The pedantic bronze manufacturer so dreadfully concerned for his good name and standing in respectable society had changed into a daring fast liver.
So far from hesitating to be seen at Lilly"s side on the streets and promenades, he could not display himself to the eyes of the crowd often enough. The good old brougham no longer sufficed. He must also have a new-fashioned, s.p.a.cious victoria, in which to drive with Lilly along Unter den Linden to the Tiergarten. When they went out together in the evening, he chose the places where most of fashionable Berlin is to be found, and tried to obtain seats from which they could be observed on all sides.
He sat in the boxes at theatre with a swelling shirt front, carefully tailored and barbered and manicured, and endeavoured to present an indifferent blase smile to the gla.s.ses levelled upon him and his companion.
He ordered his clothes from the representatives of London houses that bob up in Berlin every spring and autumn in search of customers. He adopted a monocle and stuck his handkerchief inside his left cuff. The military officer in him came to the surface and endeavoured to ape the effeminate gestures of the fops of the Guard.
In short, he bent all his energies upon proving himself worthy of a mistress of Lilly"s rank and qualities. He soon discovered that connection with so exquisite a creature, so far from damaging him, cast an unhoped for glamour about his life, even about his business, lending it an air of splendour that all his superb remodelling had not been able to give it.